All-in preflop with JJ. Am I a maniac?

[r8ed]

I was playing .25/.50 NL $25 buyin at empire and had only played about 6 hands at the table so I still had about $24 but no real reads on players.

I got dealt JJ in a late position and waited to see who bet. Someone bets $2 and one guy calls before me. I reraise to $4 to see who is serious. I found out the initial bettor was very serious becuase he reraised to $15. The other guy folded and it was my call. For some reason, on empire, people think 99 is a boss hand and since I had no read, I figured what the hell. Flop comes out and my buddy Jack is there with two rags. He puts me all-in which is what I want anyway. Unreal - another Jack on the river! It's such a nice feeling. Turns out he had a real boss hand - KK.

He was so pissed and insisted I was dumb for calling that hand and wouldn't let it go for about 45 minutes. That was fine with me because I was waiting to captialize on his anger - never got a chance to though.

Just to let you know, JJ is the lowest hand I'll go allin preflop and that depends on the player. I knew there were 3 hands that could beat me preflop but I figure it's worth $25. I acknowledge that I lucked out in this case. Am I dumb or maniac? Or do I just have balls, when balls are necessary?

[rdqlus]

Usually when you get re-raised like that you can expect AA-KK ... you re-raised yourself in order to find that out. If you're not going to use the information that your raise got you then why bother.

The three hands that beat you pre-flop all have you dominated at around 8:1. I would have laid it down.

mj

[r8ed]

I think you are correct. I actually had a cheatsheet I created when I first started that had a note (based on the frontpage articles) to reraise $2 and if I get raised $15 or something then in most cases, lay it down. I'm on a nice winning streak and I figured $25 would put a dent in my winnings but not a large one. If I wasn't up so much I may have layed it down. The other night I got pocket rockets 3 times and AKs once in less than on hour and capitalized in each case.

Anyway, I did not use the information correctly like you said. Next time, it's a laydown unless I know the player very well.

[koolmoe]

Somewhere there's a guy saying "For some reason, on empire, people think JJ is a boss hand"...

[a500lbgorilla]

Yah, this is pretty horrible.

Your min-raise preflop was bad. You're not going to isolate the pot very well becuase it's an easy call for the initial raiser and the caller.

Calling his re-raise was horrible. Admittidly, I will re-raise with a wide variety of hands preflop to be tricky, but you can't assume that you're JJ is good here. You're either way behind or slightly ahead. That translates to a losing scenario.

-'rilla

[r8ed]

koolmoe, that's actaully pretty funny. I have JJ ranked as the 4th best hand and 99 ranked 12th, so there is a big difference. I took the rankings from tyson so you can question him. If you say "relative to the 3 higher hands it is not", well AA dominates KK but nobody is going to dispute KK as a boss hand.

Would you fold EVERY TIME in this situation, even to a maniac (like me)?

BTW, I have a different handle on empire so you can stop doing the player search

[lolzzz_321]

koolmoe, that's actaully pretty funny. I have JJ ranked as the 4th best hand and 99 ranked 12th, so there is a big difference. I took the rankings from tyson so you can question him. If you say "relative to the 3 higher hands it is not", well AA dominates KK but nobody is going to dispute KK as a boss hand.

Would you fold EVERY TIME in this situation, even to a maniac (like me)?

BTW, I have a different handle on empire so you can stop doing the player search

Maniacs go all in with 64os.

The ignorant go in with JJ after their raise is reraised significantly preflop.

Nice catch.

[dalecooper]

The best you can realistically hope here is that he's seriously overvaluing something like AK suited. That makes the hand a coinflip. He's much more likely with that re-raise to hold AA or KK, and you're dominated if so. Easy fold.

[r8ed]

I admit it was a bad decision I got lucky on. But it was not ignorant.

Ignorant is going all-in with 56s with AAJJ3 on the board and no flush..
http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...pic.php?t=6317

Not so L33T

I'm still learning and I appreciate the feedback, even the harsher ones. I am improving daily thanks to this forum. Thanks.

[TheDoc]

Fishy and ignorant move, im probably laying QQ down there. That reraise screams either AA KK, maybe QQ and AK if you are lucky. That means you ARENT dominated by 1/4 of those hands, and the 25% you arent dominated, its pretty much a coin flip. Would you call that bet over a million hands every time? I sure as hell wouldn't. That is a losing play in the long wrong, and yes that is a maniac/fishy move.

[a500lbgorilla]

I admit it was a bad decision I got lucky on. But it was not ignorant.

Ignorant is going all-in with 56s with AAJJ3 on the board and no flush..
http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...pic.php?t=6317

Not so L33T

I'm still learning and I appreciate the feedback, even the harsher ones. I am improving daily thanks to this forum. Thanks.

Alright, no need for everyone to be an asshat in this thread.

The truth is your push was a horrible play. Against anyone but a manaic gambler, you're either way behind or slightly ahead in the hand.

Against somebody raising/reraising with a lot of curious holdings, JJ is an AI hand but not here.

-'rilla

[lolzzz_321]

I admit it was a bad decision I got lucky on. But it was not ignorant.

Ignorant is going all-in with 56s with AAJJ3 on the board and no flush..
http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...pic.php?t=6317

Not so L33T

I'm still learning and I appreciate the feedback, even the harsher ones. I am improving daily thanks to this forum. Thanks.

I was trying to represent a hand but got pwned.

Did you not know you were beat preflop?

[montimus]

You could have played this hand just as safely and won.

JJ isn't a hand I will usually be pushing with, unless I'm a big stack and I want to get a shortstack all-in.

Since the pot was already raised preflop, your best bet was to just call and see if you can improve your hand on the flop. In this particular case, you would have gotten KK all-in on the flop anyway. If the flop whiffed low, you'd have been doomed.

JJ is a hand I like to see as cheaply as possible, but most people typically avoid getting all in preflop with it, unless the circumstances are right.

[allLiving]

With that massive re-raise you're almost certain to be behind unless a player is consistently re-raising to this amount and you know he's a maniac. Lay it down, JJ looks pretty, but if you KNOW you're beat, lay it down! Live to play another day.

[a500lbgorilla]

koolmoe, that's actaully pretty funny. I have JJ ranked as the 4th best hand and 99 ranked 12th, so there is a big difference. I took the rankings from tyson so you can question him. If you say "relative to the 3 higher hands it is not", well AA dominates KK but nobody is going to dispute KK as a boss hand.

Would you fold EVERY TIME in this situation, even to a maniac (like me)?

BTW, I have a different handle on empire so you can stop doing the player search

Wow.

There are no good hands. Just good situations. This is a "good" hand in a bad situation. Which factor do you think takes precedent?

-'rilla

[montimus]

There are no good hands. Just good situations. This is a "good" hand in a bad situation. Which factor do you think takes precedent?

-'rilla

Words of the wise.

[koolmoe]

koolmoe, that's actaully pretty funny. I have JJ ranked as the 4th best hand and 99 ranked 12th, so there is a big difference. I took the rankings from tyson so you can question him. If you say "relative to the 3 higher hands it is not", well AA dominates KK but nobody is going to dispute KK as a boss hand.

Would you fold EVERY TIME in this situation, even to a maniac (like me)?

BTW, I have a different handle on empire so you can stop doing the player search

The difference between JJ and KK is that KK has only one overpair and dominates AK. Against the range of hands that a reasonable player would rereraise to $15, KK has much better odds than JJ, which could be facing one of two or three overpairs and AK.

If you hold KK, there there are 12 ways for your opponent to hold AA, 1 way for him to hold KK, 12 ways for him to hold QQ, and 16 ways to hold AK (so odds are 28:13 in favor of you being a huge favorite), whereas if you hold JJ there are 36 ways for your opponent to hold AA, KK, or QQ and only 16 ways to hold AK (so odds are 9:4 against you being a slight favorite).

Pretty clear that there is huge difference between KK and JJ in the scenario you described. In fact, JJ is only slightly better than 22 in the scenario you described unless you can put your opponent on a pretty wide range of underpairs to your JJ.

[r8ed]

Thank you for the feedback. I learned alot. I need much improvement in calculating odds and judging situations. I guess that's what separates the bad/mediocre players from the good ones.